


Born Unto Trouble

by historymiss



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A goofy Wild West AU of Dragon Age. Ever wondered what the game might be like if Rockstar San Diego made it? Nope? Well I wrote it anyway!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born Unto Trouble

"I'm not a child." The marshal's figure moves and Varric has to hold up his hand against the unexpected glare of the sun through the room's only window. "I don't believe the pulp trash of a two-bit hustler."

He leans in close and Varric catches the scent of tobacco and... something else? The salesman shifts his gaze to the marshall's face again but this time with more intensity. Something about him...

"If you could just tell me what you want to hear?" Varric stalls for time.

"The truth." the man withdraws and stands in the shadows once more. Varric shifts his expression to something more compliant.

"Of course, marshal. The whole truth and nothing but the truth."

He settles back into his chair, stretching like this rickety stool is his best armchair because he's damned if he's going to let this government boy see him squirm, and begins.

\---

 

Of all the cursed towns out here, swallowed by the desert or burned by the sun, it is Kirkwall that lives on in infamy. They say many things of that place. That it was built on an indian burial ground, or a site of worship for some unholy god. It took three separate attempts to settle the land before it would take: as if the ground itself was hostile to the folk that dwelt upon it. But once it was established, the town of Kirkwall seemed to thrive.

Hawke likes it here, whatever her mother might say. They've got kin in Kirkwall, after all, and out here folks are more relaxed about a young lady taking charge the way she does. It's not that Carver isn't up to being head of the family- he's strong enough and just about has the brains- but more that he finds it easier to let her and then complain about the consequences later.

She spends most of her days in the saloon with its owner (she calls herself Isabela but everyone knows that that's not her real name) and Varric. It's there that trouble finds her.

"Marian!" Carver bursts through the doors like the devil's after him and who knows, he could well be. "Marian, there's folk outside asking after you!"

Hawke raises an eyebrow.

"You're mighty panicked for announcing a social call."

"They're not so much asking as yelling." Carver admits, looking back over his shoulder. Now she's been told, Hawke thinks she can just about hear someone hollering for her. "They say they're from Gallows Rock." His face is shiny with worry. "Are you gonna go or what?"

"Can't anybody tie their shoelaces around here without me?" Hawke grumbles, but she gets up anyway and walks outside, hands on her guns just in case. Behind her, she knows that Isabela's reached for the peacemakers she keeps behind the counter and Varric's got that stupid crossbow of his ready.

Hawke rolls her eyes. Who uses a crossbow these days? I mean, really?

Outside there's a woman on a horse yelling her name. Gallows Rock is a bigger town than Kirkwall, and the seat of justice hereabouts. Hawke's been busy (that thing with the silver mines, helping those homesteaders out by the Bone Pit) but she didn't know she'd gotten this notable. Usually when she did something stupid Aveline was the one that yelled at her.

"Marian Hawke." The woman's got this face like something died under her nose, bright blue eyes and startlingly blonde hair for a lady her age. "You are charged with harbouring a known criminal."

Marian thinks. There's Sebastian, who used to be a preacher until he took the bandits who killed his family to the Lord in a more direct way than usual; Merrill, who's run away from home more times than anyone can count; Fenris, who won't talk about where he's from but has scars on his wrists like you see from manacles-

"You're gonna have to be more specific." Hawke tries a winning smile. It doesn't work.

More folk are coming out of their houses to watch. Over in the distance, a badge glints and Hawke groans inwardly- Carver's gone and gotten Aveline. The badge isn't really hers- no woman can rightly be a sheriff- but her husband's. He died in a raid or something, back before Hawke knew her. She doesn't really talk about it, and who can blame her for that? Now Aveline carries his badge and gun and deals out what justice she can. In a town like Kirkwall there's a lot of justice needs dealing out.

"This town is my jurisdiction, Meredith." Aveline growls, her gun already in her hand. "Get out of here before I run you out."

The woman- Meredith- gives her a look that could melt steel, before digging into her saddlebag and showing a poster. Hawke studies the line drawing for a minute. The scowl's new but the scruffy hair and stubble are kind of familiar.

"That you, Anders?"

The town doctor peers out from his ramshackle clinic. "I guess now's as good a time as any to tell you I ain't really a doctor."

"Hell, Anders, I figured that out when you bandaged me on the arm for the bullet hole in my leg."

Meredith's acid tone cuts through their conversation.

"I take it he didn't tell you about the monastery explosion either?"

Anders' face makes a guilty grimace. "I didn't do it."

"I got witnesses say you did." Meredith's hand goes for her gun. "Now, are you going to come quietly or are you going do something stupid?"

The stupid one, it turns out, is Hawke, who finds herself pulling her gun on a US Marshal. The street is suddenly full of glinting metal- Isabela standing in the saloon with those revolvers of hers, Varric's damnfool crossbow, Aveline and her shotgun.

"Now." Hawke's mouth is suddenly dry. "Ma'am, why don't you just turn around and go back to Gallows Rock and we won't bother each other no more, hm?"

Meredith's eyes flicker with something very close to madness. Not many people have stood up to her. Hawke could well be the first. It was arrogance coming here alone. but this was a rathole full of thieves and outlaws: who knew they'd find loyalty at such an inopportune time?

"I'm coming back." she spits, turning her horse around and galloping off.

'I look forward to it!" Hawke yells, the false bravado betraying her sagging knees and thumping heart. Anders and Isabela run forward to catch her, but she waves them off. "Anders, did you really blow up a monastery?"

"In my defence, they weren't very good monks." Anders at least has the good grace to look ashamed of himself. Sebastian, who by now has come out of his makeshift church, can't quite believe his ears.

"You killed holy men?!"

"They were corrupt and bleeding their town dry." Anders's face fills with revolutionary fire. Hawke groans. This is going to be another debate about science versus faith again, she just knows it. For someone who wasn't really a doctor Anders sure could get uppity about his opinions. "And the explosion was an accident."

"There is a special hell for the kind of-" Sebastian shoves his rifle in Anders' face and the doctor replies by taking a swing at him. Not the smartest thing to do any any means, and Sebastian lets him know it by cracking the other man over the head with the butt of his gun.

"Gentlemen!" Hawke and Aveline pull the two men apart, still clawing at each other. From the corner of her eye, Hawke can see Fenris smirking from the corner of the saloon. He never liked Anders and Sebastian. Right now, she can hardly blame him.

"Anders says it was an accident, and I'm inclined to believe him." Sebastian opens his mouth to argue but Aveline's still got him in a headlock. Hawke straightens up and addresses the crowd at large. What she's got to say is important, and she wants everyone to hear it. "Now, even if he did do it, should we hand him over to a dried up old tyrant like Meredith? Hell, if we start handing over everyone in this town who's done a little wrong, it'd be empty before the end of the month."

Isabela nods, grinning. Varric is scribbling furiously- one of his dime novels is going to have a new plot real soon.

"You all heard Meredith. She's coming back. Now, those as wants to can leave, but me? I'm staying here and showing her that she can't just up and arrest anyone she chooses."

"She is a powerful woman, Marian." Aveline says quietly. Hawke ignores her.

"So who's standing with me?"

\---

It takes a day and a half to prepare. The townsfolk that stay help build a barricade, and Hawke mans it along with Anders. To her surprise, the first one to join her is Aveline.

"This is unlike you, sheriff." She grins. Aveline shrugs.

"This is my town. If anyone's going to arrest that son of a gun it's going to be me."

The next to come is Isabela. She blows Hawke a kiss and sets up some 'special' bottles from her saloon on the ground beside her. They've got rags in the top. "You know I never miss a chance to get in on the action, sweet thing."

Carver turns up after her, all mumbled apologies. He brings Merrill with him and she reveals that she's set up booby traps on the way. Hawke has no idea where she learned to do that but help's help. Fenris shows up soon after.

"Helping me after all?" Anders can't resist. Fenris doesn't even look at him.

"Helping Hawke." he replies coldly, setting up his repeater on the barricade.

The last to arrive is Sebastian. Hawke is, privately, thrilled, but she doesn't let on. "Glad to have God on our side, Seb."

'You don't." Sebastian's still angry. "I came to say goodbye. And warn you Meredith's coming." he squints up into the sky. "High noon. Appropriate."

Hawke shrugs off her disappointment. "You know me. I always had great timing."

Sebastian turns to Anders. "If by some unholy miracle you survive this, I will hunt you."

Anders' jaw sets. "You can try."

"Excuse me, gentlemen-" Hawke points up the street to where figures are just starting to appear, shimmering in the heat haze. "Looks like the fun's about to start."

Sebastian sighs and unslings his rifle. There's no way he can run now, and he knows it. He's stuck here, at this last stand. Hawke looks around at her companions: outlaws, now, every one of them, and can't help but smile.

Varric keeps this moment in his mind: holds it. This is something special, the beginning of a story, or maybe the end.

Then the shooting starts.

\---

"And I believe you know the rest."

Varric straightens in his chair, shrugs. "Unless you have another story you'd like to hear."

"This is nonsense." The marshal paces up and down, frustrated, before coming forward and poking Varric hard in the chest. "Last stands and showdowns are for dime novels, not real life. And you expect me to believe that you abandoned them at the end?"

"I'm a trader, not a gunfighter. I knew which way the wind was blowing and left." The lie's been made easy by repetition. "Otherwise would I be here, telling you? The Hawke gang's an infamous crew of bandits, marshal, they're not likely to let a deserter live to tell the tale."

The marshal obviously doesn't believe Varric, but there's nobody else who witnessed what happened that day who's willing to talk. "Fine." he snaps. "You can go."

"Much obliged." Varric gets up and dusts himself off carefully. "Sir."

There's an inflection to the last word that makes the marshal's back tense, but he lets it go. Once outside, he takes a deep breath of free air and climbs laboriously up onto his wagon. The painted sides proudly announce Tethras' Cure-All to all and sundry as the rickety wooden vehicle rolls away and out of town, along the winding road and into the valleys and gulches around Kirkwall. Varric hums a tune to himself and urges the horses along faster. He needs to get to the camp before nightfall.

Time for the Hawke gang to move on.


End file.
